that might be why president obama is the president and won the election. joining me now is e.j. dionne, columnist for the post and an msnbc contributor and michelle carter washington, correspondent for news week and "the daily beast." first of all, thank you both for coming on the show tonight. >> good to be with you. >> let me start with you. has the president won this argument? i mean, i think that service politically brilliant. i happen to agree with it, but in terms of idea logically and politically, but to put the republicans in a position where they're going to have to be responsible for raising the taxes on their constituents or say we're going to make your taxes go up if we don't save the rich, i think he put them between a rock and a hard place. >> you know, it's so ironic because when we are in this position because the republicans a long time ago under president bush were trying to stuff more tax cuts into a very limited number so they said aha, if we say they expire, then we can actually pass for tax cuts. now that expiration date means the president has the upper ha